DC- all fun...

Now that the blog's gone private, I can let you all in on the real deal for my trip to DC. I have to say that my students were amazing. Lindy (my co-advisor) and I had so much fun with them. Even the couple boys that we were a little worried about were amazing. Seriously, I'm already looking forward to the next trip we take with our NHS students. I don't know why I didn't do this before.

Our trip was quick and crazy. Aaron (our tour director) had a jam-packed schedule for us, but still managed to give us just enough time at every site. He even planned in a couple of extra stops we hadn't scheduled, including the Kennedy Center, The National Cathedral (I loved that, you could fit four St. John's inside of it), and a ride on the subway. It was so funny watching our group on the subway. They'll be real pros the next time they need to ride one! Actually, most of my sanity on the trip was due to Lindy and Aaron (as they both already know). Between the two of them and our driver Keith, I laughed more then I have in quite some time, which was definitely needed.

No the trip was amazing, it was some of the parents I could have done without. Overall, we had a nice group of parents. They had a great time, were flexible, and had as much fun watching the students as we did. But towards the end of the trip, I had a not-so-pleasant encounter with one of the moms. I won't go into details, but I definitely felt like crap after her pre-dinner "talk" was over. Aaron for sure earned his tip helping me through that lovely little discussion. I rallied by our tour through Old-Town Alexandria though, and has some nice "tourist" time with Lindy looking through the little shops. On the plus side, I think the adults involved were feeling better by the end of the trip. In fact, two of the older ladies who were with us, Joan and Vikki, sent Lindy and me thank you cards and fans, so that we could practice our fan flirting (a little lesson we learned during our tour in Alexandria).

Perhaps the worst part of the trip (other then the confrontation) was the airport. One of my parents (I'm sure you can't guess who) told me upon arrival that a few of them didn't have seat assignments yet, so she had talked some of the parents into upgrading to get them. To preface this story, I should say that everyone did have seat assignments and none of this was necessary, but because we had group seating, it wasn't showing up when she tried to check herself into the flight early. Anyway, after the confrontation the previous night, I didn't have the energy to fight her on it, so I let her go in while I got the kids situated to find out the scoop. She and some other parents decided to upgrade and thus were in line infront of us. We couldn't check the students and rest of the group in until they were done because they were clogging up the system by making this change. So the real problem was that the airline's computer was getting confused by all the upgrades so it took forever to check in our studnets because it didn't know who had checked in and who hadn't (plus, the parents also started checking in students-their own children, and others which I didn't realize they were doing at first). Anyway, Aaron-the-most-amazing-tour-director-in-the-whole-world, Lindy and I, finally got it straightened out with the airline worker, checked everybody's luggage as "Ashley" and got our kids to security about 15 minutes before the plane boarded. I left them there and sprinted to my own flight (through another gate), and got a call from Lindy to let me know everyone was on. Needless to say, it was a good thing I wasn't on the flight with my students because I was pretty pissed off at the situation. Actually, all three of us were pretty angry...but, we all made it, so it was good. Mostly, it's just annoying because if everyone had just listened to Aaron, none of the issues would have happened.

But even with those two not-so-wonderful events, our trip and time in DC was amazing. I saw a ton of things I'd never seen before. The students had amazing adventures. We did everything we set out to do and so much more. Other then not being clear enough before going with the parents what the tour would be like (how could I have been, I'd never been on one), I wouldn't change a thing. I can't wait to do this again with a new group of students. Our group reaffirmed during the week (and since returning home) what a life-changing thing travelling to new places can be, especially at a school where people may have never left the Pacific Northwest. It's going to be amazing to do this again with another group of students.